


home

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, Everything is ok, Fluff and Angst, Harry is a good husband, M/M, almost, louis is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:15:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: louis feels like he's losing control and harry brings him back home.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 85





	home

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first larry work but i hope you enjoy :) i wrote half of this at three a.m. and didn't edit it so i hope to god there's no mistakes. kudos and comments are much appreciated <3

_Fuck_. Louis thought the topic had been blacklisted, but the interviewers decided to ignore it and it felt like a punch to the gut. They had to do whatever to get the scoop, right? It might have stung less if it was pre-recorded to be uploaded to Youtube, but the blinking light overhead reminded him otherwise. The question lingered in the air and then the words dove -- they seemed to get lodged in his ears and the noise was blocked out -- and then they trickled down to his throat and he couldn’t breathe for a few seconds, but once Louis swallowed them down like every time, he was able to clear up. He was still a little foggy, but he could see his manager gesturing wildly and making a show of running his hand across his throat in the universal sign of ‘if-you-don’t-shut-that-shit-down-right-now-your-life-is-over’, and Louis fell headfirst into his mechanized state. He felt like one of those dolls with the turnkey on the back, and his manager wouldn’t stop twisting it. 

  
“Louis?”

  
He hesitated. “No, sorry. No. We’re not. I mean, obviously,” he forced out. The answer was rehearsed, the words always printed onto the back of his eyelids in a bold neon font so he would never forget. He wanted to learn how to sleep with his eyes open so he doesn’t have to see them before he falls asleep. 

  
“So you and Harry; there’s nothing going on? I mean, the fans seem skeptical of that.” The interviewer sounded smug, like he knew that his words were slowly picking Louis apart. 

  
Louis’s head was bowed, his eyes frantically flitting to each smudge on the table to avoid the interviewers’ eyes. He added another one, rubbing his thumb hard on the surface. It made a little squeak, disturbing the cloudy silence hanging in the air. If there was a camera filming him right now, it would be obvious he was lying -- his eye always twitches -- but the only other tell he had was that he would talk faster. The words would form on his tongue and fall out of his mouth in a well-oiled assembly line, a valiant effort to get him farther and farther away from the dreaded topic. Only his person knew that he did that, though. 

  
“No, no, I mean, no. People are always gonna speculate, you know? And there’s really nothing I can do about it other than let them talk, you know? If you google a conspiracy on iPhones, you’re gonna get one. I mean, you know, there are conspiracies on everything.”

  
One interviewer hummed in a lackadaisical manner, not knowing the right words to respond to him. Louis breathed out a sigh. It worked. It always did. Louis would ramble and use too many words and steal them so no others could use them against him anymore. 

  
“So, did you lads watch the football game against Man U today?”

  
\-------

  
Louis slid into his car, needing to drive away and go home, right where Harry was. But his thoughts were too loud and he needed Harry’s voice to cut through them. Louis could hear him telling him to _breathe, baby, just breathe_ , and he sat there, inhaling as much as he could and exhaling just as forcefully. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, but his inhales were coming quick and his exhales leaving quivery. Harry’s voice, dipped in a thick coat of honey and wrapped in a thin lining of smoke, was usually enough to ground him, but he needed something _more_ , he needed Harry. He slammed his hands on the steering wheel dangerously close to the horn one, two, three, four times. He rested his head on the wheel, trying to regain composure, before shakily jamming the car keys into the ignition and starting the drive home. 

  
\-------

  
Louis awkwardly fumbled for the light switch in the dark, then decided he had no more effort left to give and left the darkness untouched. It was better that way. He felt safer in the dark.

  
He ambled quietly into the flat, only stopping to admire his boy lying asleep on the couch. He stood there in the dark for a moment and leaned against the door frame, admiring how the light emitting from the television made its way to lie on Harry’s face. It highlighted the way his jaw and cheekbones were cut and the rise and fall of his chest and gave him that ethereal glow Louis didn’t know how he managed to produce. Louis wanted to lay his head on his chest and hear the rhythm and thump of Harry’s heartbeat -- to remind himself that Harry was alive and there and as long as Louis lived he would always be -- so he did. He covered Harry with himself, Louis’s head resting in the crook of Harry’s neck and his arms wrapped around his neck. He nestled a leg in between Harry’s, the other leg falling next to the back of the couch and Harry’s leg, and Harry’s hands came up, one softly stroking his back and the other petting his hair. 

  
Harry hummed contentedly, in no rush to open his eyes, because he knew who was on top of him from the familiar weight. He pressed a feather-light kiss to Louis’s temple. “Hey, angel,” he murmured. 

  
Louis kissed his jaw and made a whining whimper as if to say ‘don’t disturb the darkness’ and ‘don’t speak, just hold me’ and ‘today was a shit day’, and of course Harry understood because Harry was Harry and Harry knew every sound, every movement, every look that came from Louis. Harry had learned Louis, and once he finished, he learned him again. So Harry just knew and continued running his hand through Louis’s hair lazily as Louis let out soft breaths against his neck. 

  
Louis burrowed his head deeper into Harry’s neck, where his neck met his shoulder, because that’s where it smelled most like Harry, like vanilla and woods and safe and home. When Louis had days like today when he had to deny being in love with his favorite person, he had to hold Harry tight and never let go. Maybe one day, after he had to deny it over and over again, the universe and Harry and Louis would start believing it too. That’s what scared Louis the most, and it hovered over them like a cloud ready to pour. It would drift away most of the time when Louis held Harry tight and Harry held just as hard, so that’s what they needed to do. 

  
Laying there, when he was safe and surrounded by Harry and the dark, was when Louis felt most content. He craved times like these like a drug and was afraid that if he didn’t get them often enough, the spool of thread inside him holding him together would unravel, leaving just a jumble of all his worst thoughts. 

  
The dark was another one of Louis’s Favorite Things. He liked how it was something he was completely in control of. If he wanted the dark to stop, he could just flick a light switch. Sometimes, when he was losing himself, he would sit there on his bed with the lamp beside him on the nightstand and turn the light on and off to remind him he was there and he was in control. Right now, laying here in Harry’s arms, the dark never felt safer. It cloaked him like a blanket, so smothering but so comforting, and it felt nice that Louis didn’t have to think. Harry and the dark were everywhere and there was no room left for Louis, which is exactly how he liked it. The dark to Louis was so thick and he wanted to mold the shadows from it. Yet it was so fragile, like he could reach out and poke at it and it would come crumbling down and slide through his fingers like sand. Or, he could make a singular noise, and it would pierce the silence and the dark and they would both explode like dying stars and a black hole would be created in their wake. It would suck Louis in, and then Harry, and Louis didn’t want to risk that. So he sat there in the dark and the silence, not making a sound and not moving an inch, so he could melt into the dark and the dark would continue undisturbed. 

  
Sometimes after Louis stole and used up all the words in denial, there was none left for him to say the things he wanted to say. One word always remained, though, everpresent in his mind, and there it was now, bigger and bolder and more bright than ever. As he falls into sleep, he is usually wrapped in the soft tendrils of dream to soften the impact that comes with the fall. But dream doesn’t soften his impact this time, doesn’t come to wrap him up, and so he lays awake, dreaming of dreams. But then Harry sniffles and holds him even tighter, and although it is already there and omnipresent, Louis is reminded of what he needs to dream about. _Home_. 


End file.
